Jon and Edwina, Jon
What class of Sign is a law of nature? I am not referring to how we /describe/ a law of nature in human language, an equation, or other /representation/ of it; I am talking about the law of nature /itself/, the real general that governs actual occurrences.
Edwina
But a symbol is not merely convention; ... could it be a reference to the general laws held within the Dynamic Object such that a 'shared reality' could be developed.
That phrase "general laws held within the Dynamic Object" is strange. Wittgenstein would call it a fragment of a language game that "has gone on a holiday". It takes a phrase "general laws" from a language game of science, mixes it with a phrase "Dynamic Object" from Peirce's language game of semiotic, combines it with a physical language game of "holding something", and applies it to something "really real" for which we have no words for describing. In short, it's a metaphor. To analyze that metaphor, consider some examples: Galileo's law of falling bodies on earth: If you drop something in a vacuum, the distance x that it falls in time t is proportional to t squared: x = ½ gt² Kepler's law of planetary orbits: Planets in the solar system travel in elliptical orbits with the sun at one focus of each ellipse. Newton's law of gravity: A generalization that explains the laws of Galileo and Kepler plus many related phenomena. Einstein's general relativity: A generalization that explains all the above plus many more phenomena. Note that each of these laws makes true predictions within its domain of applicability. The more general laws, which cover a broader range of phenomena, are closer approximations to reality -- but each one is still a law of science. In summary, I believe that the term 'law of nature' is a metaphor for aspects of nature that we can only describe. The ultimate laws that science might discover in the far, far distant future might be very accurate. But when stated, they would be signs expressed in the same ways as other laws of science. John
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